Pages

20091005

Big Brother Cop monitors your emails… spooky!

 

Censorship alert: “The SAPS has an entire department being kept busy with these emails…’  Aldino Hutchinson, Gauteng resident says…

  • “Emails with urban myths fuel 2010 fears,’ claims SAPS 

CensorBugBearDesignByRudiPrinsloo Oct 3 2009 -- Emails containing urban myths from overseas websites are’ giving South Africa a negative image and causing unnecessary panic before the WC2010, warns a SAPS spokesman in an interview with Fiona Gounden of The Independent.

“Recent e-mails containing information downloaded from www.snopes.com - a US website - are being sent to South Africans with headlines such as: "Is this what is going to happen to the tourists when they reach beautiful Africa in 2010?" and "Come on 2010 visitors, we criminals have new techniques to try on you."

The journalist describes some of these ‘urban myths” as follows:

  • Criminals cloning vehicle’s  remote alarm devices,
  • Burglars  checking newspaper obituaries so they could clean out homes while the residents were away attending funerals
  • Rapists trapping victims by “posing as police officers and stopping traffic in isolated areas.”

(note: these aren’t however ‘urban myths’. All these incidents have been recorded as genuine in South Africa. The police spokesman Mdunge’s claim that these are ‘urban myths’ is in fact the biggest ‘urban myth’ of all. 

SAPS spokesman Supt Vincent Mdunge insists however that ‘these e-mails were misleading the South African public and causing "unnecessary panic… Police have never heard of such happenings and this is definitely not the case,’ he claims."This hype is definitely not good, especially as we near the World Cup," Mdunge said.

Question: What business is it of the SAPS anyway? Was anyone financially defrauded?

  • One e-mail doing the rounds is about crooks supposedly being able to clone car-alarm systems.
    The e-mail states: "I locked my car. As I walked away I heard my car door unlock. I went back and locked my car again three times. Each time, as soon as I started to walk away, I would hear it unlock again. Naturally alarmed, I looked around and there were two guys sitting in a car in the fire lane next to the store. They were obviously watching me intently, and there was no doubt they were somehow involved in this very weird situation. I quickly jumped in my car and sped away. I went straight to the police station, told them what had happened, and found out I was part of a new, and very successful, scheme being used to gain entry into cars."
    “Aldino Hutchinson, a sales and technical support specialist for a Gauteng firm, said he had sent the e-mail to many of his friends only later realising it was an urban legend…”
  • (CCB notes: we have been unable to find anyone on the internet by the name of Albino Hutchinson. Please come forward Mr Hutchinson – and tell us the manner in which you were made aware by the Police that these emails you were sending out, were ‘urban myths?”  Or is Mr Albino Hutchinson also an ‘urban myth”… the plot thickens… a.j.stuijt@knid.nl )

SAPS IS WATCHING EVERYBODY’S EMAIL….

Whether he’s invented or not, an interesting comment was attributred to him, namely that "the SAPS has a whole department being kept busy daily with these sort of e-mails being distributed."

Another e-mail being circulated talks about burglars checking newspaper obituaries so they can clean out homes while the residents are away attending funerals.

  • The e-mail states: "It's been rumoured that thieves scan the obituary and wedding announcements to see which house to hit. The criminals, police said, specialised in burglaries from homes of vacationers, honeymooners and deceased persons after careful perusal of newspaper death notices and society pages.The suspects inflicted added emotional turmoil by ransacking the homes."

“Stop downloading from overseas websites,” urges SAPS…

Mdunge said the “ negative chain e-mails could be eradicated if people stopped downloading information from overseas websites.

  • "If these e-mails don't stop now, then it is going to spiral out of control by the 2010 World Cup. People who have already sent out such e-mails should now send out other e-mails explaining that these are urban myths."

Meanwhile, David Mikkelson, the operator of http://www.snopes.com, said: "We receive various submissions from people and we make it clear on the website that the information is based on urban legends."

relevant background:

IT expert 'hindered' in probing hoax emails

PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA Oct 01 2007 -- A computer expert testified in court on Monday that he was hindered when analysing whether former spy boss Billy Masetlha and his two co-accused had fabricated controversial hoax emails about an alleged African National Congress conspiracy, as he was given hard copies and not the electronic versions.

  • The Pretoria Commercial Crimes Court heard state witness Daniel Myburgh (37) testify that he was given 74 pages of electronic communication, which were hard copy and not electronic versions, when tasked with investigating the matter.

Don’t know method of collection:

Myburgh  had no explanation of how the 74 pages were collected, nor of the methodology and the type of software used to create the emails.

  • "The influence of limitations was that I could not test the electronic route of the emails," Myburgh said.

Masetlha, IT specialist Muziwendoda Kunene and former National Intelligence Agency (NIA) manager for electronic surveillance Funokwakhe Madlala are facing charges of fraud amounting to R152 000.

The charges relate to alleged hoax emails implicating senior African National Congress members in a conspiracy against former deputy president Jacob Zuma.The three pleaded not guilty to one count of fraud.

  • Myburgh said he” could only form an educated guess of how the emails were created.”..

Magistrate Dawie Jacobs asked Myburgh if his educated guess was due to lack of evidence of how the emails were generated and he agreed. “"I had to consider how they [the emails] were created when analysing them and then formulate an idea of all the possibilities," he said.

  • Myburgh, an expert with seven years' experience, said he formulated his opinion bearing in mind that the emails could have been authentic or that they could have been fabricated by monitoring, and by typing, copying and pasting the documents.

In a plea explanation read in court by his attorney, the accused IT specialist Kunene said ‘the emails in the state's possession were not the same ones he handed over to the NIA.”

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.